How 13-year-old American came up with candy without sugar and earned $ 6 million

In between school visits and dancing classes, 13-year-old Alina Morse manages to manage six employees and get ready for meetings with retailers around the world.

Morse started a sugar-free candy company when she was nine years old after her father told her she couldn't eat candy because it was bad for her teeth. Alina was unhappy with this ban and wanted to learn how to make sweets that would be safe and even healthy for teeth, writes Money.

After watching a few YouTube videos on how to make sweets, and conducting a series of experiments in her own kitchen, Morse launched the Zolli Candy project and created the best-selling sugar-free lollipops that can be found on Amazon.

Morse became the youngest of all who ever appeared on the cover of the Entrepreneur publication, and she also met twice with Michelle Obama in the White House. Now the girl sells her product in large stores such as Whole Foods, Walmart and Kroger.

Morse dreamed of becoming the CEO of a company since she was a little girl. According to her, at the age of three she began to come up with various inventions, a kind of business concept. As a result, the young entrepreneur settled on the problem of oral hygiene, having discovered that caries is one of the most common chronic diseases among children.

“There was no prior research on candy that cleans teeth,” Morse says. “We felt like this was a new thing, that we were filling a niche in the market.”

Morse learned that after eating sugar, the pH of the mouth becomes acidic, which leads to tooth decay. So to create Zollipops and Zaffi Taffy gummies, she chose the natural sweeteners xylitol and erythritol to reduce overall acidity, balance the pH in the mouth and—according to the company—"clean your teeth while you eat."

When Alina finally chose the best sweets recipe and made several proven samples, she convinced her father to help her start a business. At that moment, Morse collected 3750 dollars from gifts for his birthday and other holidays, and his father added the same amount to the initial investment. Together, Morsy went to various factories in Michigan, where they agreed to produce and pack candy in larger batches.

In the first year, she sold 70 thousands of Zollipops at the first major retail store: Whole Foods. Morse observed that sales doubled year after year for four years, and in 2018, sales revenue was 6 million dollars.

The next goal is 10 million in 2019. The company currently has six full-time employees and works with major retailers across the country.

“We're number one in selling sugar-free lollipops, but we want to be number one overall because we have a great mission, a great story and just a great product that not only tastes great, but is healthy too.” says Morse.

In her short career as a teenage executive, Morse has learned some useful insights. She believes that age helps her understand her audience better. In meetings with CEOs of leading candy brands like Tootsie Roll and Peeps, the girl saw mostly older men at the table—not exactly the target candy-eating demographic.

“There are amazing people in the candy world, but there are no kids in the candy business,” Morse says. “As soon as I came to the conclusion that there weren’t many female leaders and, especially, teenage leaders, I decided to change the situation.”

Morse admits that she is sometimes not taken seriously because of her age, but she doesn't let that perception affect her work. Alina believes that the secret of her success is not a special natural gift or upbringing - she was simply passionate about her work and helping others.

Alina donates 10 a percent of Zollipops profits to finance oral hygiene lessons in public schools, using her own non-profit organization Million Smiles, which aims to reduce the caries epidemic in America. She also lectures to inspire other children to find their passion and start their own business.

According to her, Morse is living proof that anyone can start a company, no matter how old they are - 9 or 90.

“It doesn’t matter how old you are, where you’re from, what you do,” she says. “All that matters is the desire and the fact that you are passionate about it, that you will do everything in your power to improve this world.”

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